


guts to tremble

by keenquing



Series: guts to tremble [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:24:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keenquing/pseuds/keenquing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In worlds without magic, there are some things that even True Love can’t cure (or the one in which Belle is free but chronically ill during the Curse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	guts to tremble

_bravery cannot be measured by a lack of fear_  
_It takes guts to tremble_  
_It takes so much tremble to love_

**-Andrea Gibson ‘Royal Heart’**

Maribel Gold knows that the whole town talks about her.

True, she rarely leaves the sanctuary of her house—anymore, she rarely leaves their bedroom—but she still knows. She reads enough (although these days it is often listening instead of reading, because even with the wonderful device her husband bought that lets her change the size and colour of the words most days her eyes just hurt too much and the pain turns the words into nonsense) to know what people in a small town must think of the rarely-seen, sickly wife of the man who collects their rent. She isn’t sure what is said the most, if more people suspect her of only marrying him for his money or if they believe he’s taking advantage of her condition, but it hardly matters. Because their life is no story, and that is both a blessing and the most painful curse at times.

Because even though she can’t remember the last time she pleased him in this bed—it might not have been so long ago, really, with how the pain blurs her days together so—Maribel still feels her husband’s utter devotion to her doesn’t just come from a place of duty and being a man who holds to his bargains. Because while it’s true her father encouraged her marriage so that he would no longer be the one responsible for her care and the not-so trifling matter of getting his own rent considerably reduced, Maribel was still the one to say _yes_ and _I do_ , and while her memory and tongue are both often heavy and shrouded, she knows without any question that she chose to say them as clearly and loudly as her body would allow. And while his promises to find her the best care the small town could offer and that her father would never go completely bankrupt might have made their marriage look like just another transaction, she knows the way he looks at her when he comes home—even when she is wearing some hideous terry or flannel robe and hasn’t been able to find the strength to brush her hair—has nothing in common with how he looks at his investments.

Which is why, in the moments when her mind is clear enough to wish, Maribel wishes all the money and attention he’s lavished on her had _fixed_ her. That, like in the stories she devoured as a child until she realized they were the most toxic fiction, the love he’s brought into her life would have truly filled her heart enough that it could clean whatever poison flows through her veins and makes her muscles and bones and _hair_ hurt so much that even breathing is sometimes the worst torture imaginable.

The only thing that’s changed is that when he walks into the room, when he touches her hair, when he asks as softly as he can and still be heard if she’s eaten and if there is anything he can get for her—those moments, when he’s there, for just a moment the pain that had always been her only lover is elbowed aside, is unable to hold her so tightly even when all he’s doing is stroking the back of his hand against her cheek. In those moments, the heavy fog that blinds her and fills her ears clears and the world is in sharp and vibrant again and she always smiles for him and gives him whatever words he needs to hear, eats and drinks whatever he brings, listens to him talk about his day, eyes open and watching him the whole time even if she struggles to follow the words.

Somehow, she always manages to hold the tears until she’s sure he’s asleep, but only that long, because she is never able to keep the pain at arm’s length any longer than that. And then she spends hours gasping into her pillow, almost but never quite letting herself wish that she’d never said _yes,_ that she didn’t know what it felt like to be so loved and so wanted, because it only ever makes the burning in her skin, the knives digging into her skull and guts, so much worse, because she knows that even if it never ends she’ll never be brave enough to again try what she’d at sixteen, taking the contents of three of the bottles that were supposed to give her a life to end it, because as worthless as the life she has is, with stacks of books she will never be able to read, all the places she will never be able to see for the fear the mountains and sand will lure another mysterious disorder out of her bones—Maribel knows she will never be strong enough to leave him with that, with the feeling that nothing he did was enough. She knows the story so few do, of his first wife, the one before the money and the house, who took his child and belief that he could be loved. Sometimes she thinks the pain in her neck burns sharper at night because of the confessions he whispered there, of how he didn’t deserve her, wished he was _enough_ to heal her body as she’d healed his heart.

The first night he said that (she thinks it was their first anniversary, when she had to curl her body away from his when her legs began to scream and not in the joyful way she wanted to for him), Maribel waited until she was sure he was solidly asleep before limping from their bed to the bathroom, turning on the shower so he wouldn’t be woken by her retching sobs, the pain she felt coming not from inside her body but the realization that had hit her squarely in the heart. The knowledge that he was so much _more_ to her than anyone else had ever been, that his year and some odd months of sweet words and tender touch had done more for her than twenty years of her father’s 'of course I love you’. That leaving him—truly _leaving_ , not just walking into the mist on the arm of another man—would be the most gutless thing she could ever do.

She’s been bowled over by that knowledge again tonight, just a few hours ago when he came into their room and looked at her in a way he never had before, not even on their wedding day when the light in his eyes had made the rash from her lace dress and the swollen feet from her heels the next day more than worth it. Tonight he’d looked so happy, yet so petrified at the same time, as if he was seeing her for the very first time and feared it would also be the last. And when she’d tried to make small talk, asking how collecting this month’s rent had gone, he’d simply fiddled about with filling her water glass and asking the questions he did every night. She’d answered nearly by route–thanks yes she’d eaten thanks to Dove and had kept it all down, no she didn’t need any joint or muscle massaged, no she didn’t feel any fever or chill tonight, yes she’d remembered all her medications—watching him intently the whole time.

He didn’t face her for the longest time as he fumbled with filling her pill keeper for the next day as he did every night, his usually dexterous fingers seeming to have even more trouble than she would have with the bottle caps, and when he finally turned his face made her own sickly pallor look absolutely radiant by comparison. Before she could ask what had happened while he was out, he was beside her on the bed—almost stumbling, which made her heart race too quickly as she suddenly wondered what would happen if he ever _were_ to fall, she could never help him how had she never thought of that before—and his face was buried in her hair, voice both thicker and softer than she could remember it ever being. She thought she heard the word 'sorry’ more than once, and she certainly heard her name (or half of it, but she couldn’t think of any other word that might sound like _Belle_ , though he’d never called her that before, his tongue had always lingered over every letter and syllable of her name when he pressed it to her skin), but other than that she couldn’t make any sense of what he was saying and she wasn’t so sure it was because of the ever-present cloud of pain tonight. She wished desperately that she could comfort him, as he always did her, but all she could find the mind to do was gingerly move her fingers through her hair and whisper things that made even less sense than the words that had left salt trails on her shoulder.

Eventually, he’d lifted his head, apologized far more coherently than he’d been doing for the past fifteen minutes, and pressed his lips to her hair. The room fell dark at some point, and then she felt his breath slowing against the back of her neck, although even when he finally seemed to fall asleep, one of his hands still held to her arm. Now, as she tries to keep her own sobs in her throat, Maribel’s sure there’s going to be a bruise there in the morning but she can’t bear to move him. As much as she hates that her body isn’t strong enough to handle even his gentlest love, right now she’s in awe of the force of his feelings.

Even though she has no idea what shook him so much tonight, to the point of apologizing for seemingly _everything—_ even without walking out of her door, Maribel knows that the town talks about her, about him. That it’s quite possible a tenant made some horrible insinuation about their relationship, and that they were words he’d heard just once too often. But she also knows something none of them could ever possibly understand or suspect: she knows she’s the only thing keeping him alive some days, even more than his money and persuasion has kept her own heart beating, and she isn’t sure if she should be proud of being what keeps the most feared man in town breathing, or if she should hate him for being the only reason she can’t find the strength to still her own lungs.


End file.
